A local farmer’s market may seem like an unlikely starting point for a journey to a James Beard nomination. But when you talk to him, you get the sense that Chef Andy Elliot always knew things were heading in this direction.
Today, Modern Bird is one of the most celebrated restaurants in America, which is a particularly remarkable achievement considering its location. Traverse City is known for its vineyards, farmlands, and its big annual cherry festival. But it’s pretty rare for a restaurant from this northern Michigan town to land on the New York Times’ Best Restaurants in America list.
So how did Chef Andy go from slinging pastries on the weekends to the food pages of the New York Times? He joined hosts Claudia Saric and Spencer Michiel on So You Want To Run a Restaurant to tell us. Spoiler alert: This is not just a success story. It’s also a love story. And we’ll get to that, but first, a little background on Chef Andy.
His restaurant might be called Modern Bird, but Andy’s first source of inspiration was family tradition. Andy credits his mother and grandmother for nurturing his lifelong passion.
“They're both great cooks,” he explained. “My grandma's Italian-American. She was born in the city of Chicago, but couldn't speak English until she went to kindergarten. Everybody hung out in the kitchen because that's where all the good stuff was. So food was always really important growing up.”
Not only was cooking a deeply embedded part of family life, but Andy also found the ability to cook empowering. He recalled that “I was probably eight or nine when I learned how to make scrambled eggs in my grandma's kitchen. And that was a powerful thing – to be able to make something from nothing and feed myself.”
There was no doubt in Andy’s mind that he would pursue a career in the kitchen. But he had to take the back door to get his first big break…literally. He was still a student in culinary school, and he was looking for a reputable place to stage. A colleague gave him a phone number for somebody at Chicago’s Michelin-rated Boka. As Andy recalled, “I called twice, left two voicemails, and didn't get a call back, so I just went over there between classes one day and knocked on the back door.”
That would turn out to be a life-altering decision, one that exposed Andy to a new level of excellence. As he told us, “My experience there is probably the most important that I've had in my career. Everybody was super passionate. Most of the people I worked with back then either have their own place or are running their own restaurant now.’
That’s not the only life-altering thing that happened at Boka. That’s also where Andy met his future wife and business partner, Emily. Andy recalled that “I had been there about two years. She started as an intern, and she got moved up to the hotline under my station. And, you know, things happened.”
They certainly did.
Fast-forward to 2018, when the young couple left big city life for northern Michigan.
“We moved up here solely because we wanted to live here. There's certainly a lot of calculus that went into that, but you know, when you get to the bottom line, it's just a nice place to live,” Andy told us. “We knew we wanted to try to go into business for ourselves up here. We had no idea what form or fashion that would take. “
The first form and fashion was the local farmer’s market. As Andy told us, the goal was to take it slowly, to get to know the people, places, and preferences of Traverse City. He explained, “We were doing pop tarts and bread and pastries, just to put a name out there and start meeting people.”
It was also an opportunity to appreciate the unique environment they were now working in. Traverse may not be a big metropolitan city like Chicago or New York, but it does host a very sophisticated food culture. Much of this is courtesy of its rich agricultural diversity. The farmer’s market turned out to be the perfect place to launch a business in Traverse City.
And as Andy told us, “getting to know the farmers has become super important to what we do here at Modern Bird now.”
“I think ultimately, if you're passionate about this industry, you probably have some sort of entrepreneurial spirit, whether you realize it or not,” Andy observed. Even as he was just learning the ropes in Chicago, he had the ambition to put his own name on the menu.
That ambition guided each step in his career. In particular, he tried to challenge himself with each of these steps – to learn new skills, to experience new foods, to experiment with new dishes. As Andy told us, “I tried to be really conscious about where I was working. I tried to put myself in a position to be uncomfortable so that I could learn how to level up.”
Traverse City proved an amazing destination for leveling up. Andy reminded us that Michigan is second only to California in agricultural diversity. So there’s a good reason that Traverse City is home to such a vibrant food culture. And it played a major role in Andy and Emily's decision to relocate there.
The vibrant food culture is also a big factor in determining what you’ll find on the menu at Modern Bird at any given time of year. As Andy explained, “Emily and I have had the great fortune to travel to a few places of note when it comes to growing produce. And this is just as good as any of them. Most of the produce on our menu comes from within 10 miles of here. And that’s not just because it's local. It's just really, really good.”
Still, when you rely on locally-sourced, fresh produce in a state like Michigan, availability is highly seasonal.
“We're going into our fourth winter, so I kind of know what's around. So it's like, ‘What am I going to do with celery root? What am I going to do with potatoes? What am I going to do with carrots and beets and all the storage crops since that’s all we're going to have access to for probably the next four to six months?’
For Andy, the answer is to lean into these seasonal shifts with creativity. As he told us, “you can't do everything all the time, so we just let the local produce lead the way.”
Obviously, the produce isn't the only thing that’s seasonal in Traverse City. So is the foot traffic. The area is booming with visitors in the summer and fall seasons. People come from all over for the crystal-clear lakes, the stunning foliage, and the farm-to-table fare. But restaurant owners here face the same dilemma businesses face in seasonal towns all over the U.S. – how to stay busy all year long.
Chef Andy acknowledged that even acclaimed restaurants like Modern Bird must grapple with this question. This is one of the reasons Andy and Emily chose the intimate historical space that houses their restaurant.
Andy explained, “There aren’t big 200-seat restaurants up here, because it's not sustainable. Certainly, you're going to put a ceiling on your revenue by only having 50 seats like we do. But in March and April, which are actually the slow months, we can have 20 people in the room, and it doesn't feel empty. There's still a vibe.”
Of course, in the interest of making it a profitable vibe, Modern Bird does take additional steps to bring people in during the colder and quiet months. Andy told us, “We do a few special events throughout the wintertime. We'll do wine dinners with local wineries. We have a club collaboration dinner coming up in December with some local chefs.”
Speaking of local chefs, Andy and Emily are among the few who work and live together. Fortunately, they have learned over the years to do both with relative harmony. As Andy told us, “We're constantly bouncing ideas off of each other. We try to make it as collaborative as possible.”
Sometimes, there are bound to be disagreements. For those occasions, Andy told us, “we each have veto power over the other.”
Most of the time however, new inspiration strikes when Andy and Emily are relaxing at home. Andy told us, “After our son goes to bed, if we're not vegging out or watching football, it's like, ‘Alright, time to change the menu. What are we going to do?’”
[Check out the whole episode above to find out which of Andy’s favorite dishes Emily just recently vetoed!]
Whether you’re planning to open a stand at your local farmer’s market or you’re aspiring to earn your first Michelin star, there is technology that can help. Not sure where to start? Start by reaching out to one of our in-house restaurant tech experts for your free, personalized consultation.